


The Faithful Queen

by Aku_Cinta_Kamu



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Susan, Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Rebirth of Narnia, Susan Pevensie Never Forgot, Susan-centric, The Problem of Susan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 23:42:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8820961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aku_Cinta_Kamu/pseuds/Aku_Cinta_Kamu
Summary: A fix-it because I hate what happened to Susan in the books.Susan never wanted to leave Narnia and doesn't know how to live outside of it. She deals with life and with being hurt, but when Aslan prevents her from returning with her siblings, she snaps.Susan returns to Narnia and fixes everything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So... This happened instead of my homework. Leave a review if you like it!
> 
> The rest of this is already written and it will be going up very soon!  
> This work is Un-Beta'd. If you see something, let me know!
> 
> If you recognize it, I don't own it.

Susan feels the fall of Narnia in her bones. She weeps. She weeps for her siblings and their unknown fate: Aslan, she knows, would not let them die in a train crash of all things. But above all things, she weeps for her home. Susan had not known home in a long time.  
After Narnia, they had returned and they were radiant. They had conquered their own battles, each had gone their own way. Except for Susan.  
Susan had been caught up in Narnia more than the rest. She remembered her days as High Queen and she had wished for them with her whole heart. She spent her nights awake, praying to Aslan to take her back, to forgive her for growing up. She received no answer.  
And when she moved to America, away from her siblings and their talk of Narnia— the very word sending stabs of pain through her entire being— she continued to pray. She wrote books and found release in stories that were similar to her own. She went to school. She did not sleep.  
She had taken her title and the protection it offered for granted. Aslan did not save her when she was taken by a man who smelled too strongly of booze, not when she cried his name, not when she was left in a dirty alleyway with her dress around her waist and her nylons torn around her feet. He did not answer when she lay weeping in bed for months, when she refused to answer letters from her siblings.  
They did not understand, when she lashed out and said that it was just a game they had played. They did not understand that Narnia had failed to protect her.  
Lucy came to visit when she returned and found Susan changed. It was news of Lucy’s visit that made her strong again: she was cold and calculated and everything she needed to be to feel nothing. Lucy spoke of Aslan. Susan found that she could not say His name. Lucy left after a time, and Susan did not notice her worry. She was too caught up in her stories, in living lives that were not her own.  
She took to bathing in scorching water. When she found that she could still feel his hands on her, she went out. It took some effort, but she found a craftsman who could create a bow for her, something like her own, but not perfect. She could not replicate His gift to her: she wanted only to mimic it.  
“For research,” she told him. “I am writing a book, you see. I must know exactly how long it takes for a woman to become a marksman.” He didn’t ask questions. She took the bow and it was not her own, but it would do. She lined up her journals, her memories of Narnia and of After, and used them as targets.  
Peter came to visit and found her hurting. He looked at her and saw her eyes instead of her smile and he said nothing, taking her into his arms and holding her until she pulled away. She did not cry. He left, for he said that America was not his home. She could not stand to tell him that it wasn’t hers either.  
It was Edmund who stayed. He took one look at her and dragged her out of the house to the sea on the eastern shore. She had moved too far inland: at the sight of the sea she was weeping for a home she barely remembered. Edmund took her hand and they moved onto the sand. It was not the sand of her home, but it was here, and that mattered.  
He helped her take off her shoes and stockings. He took her hand once more and they went to stand in the waves. The water was not clean, but she washed her face in it anyways. Edmund said nothing as she wiped away the lipstick and tasted the saltwater and knelt in the waves, getting her dress wet. He knelt with her. She whispered His name and heard no answer. She wept.  
It was King Edmund the Just who tracked down the man. She could pretend that she could see his crown upon his head as he beat the man’s face in. He did other things too. He did them so she didn’t have to see, but she didn’t have to fear either. It was Edmund who understood.  
When they were invited back to Narnia, it wasn’t as it seemed to be. As she slept for the first time, Aslan answered her. He did not show his face, but he warned her.  
“You cannot return, my child. It is not yet time.” She cursed his name again and again but he did not answer.  
Her car broke down on the way to the station: she watched the train leave and she wept.  
Her siblings thought her a traitor. They thought she had forsaken Narnia.  
Narnia had forsaken her. It had fallen without her. Susan went home and picked up her bow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's part two! Again, if you recognize it, I don't own it. If you like it, let me know!

It had been a month. She put together her will and she left her last book on her bedside table with a letter to her publisher, the woman she counted as her single friend in this world.  
On her journey she sketched pictures of Aslan as she remembered him. He seemed to come to life on the page and she knew it was time.  
She stepped into the old house.  
The wardrobe was exactly as they had left it: she could not enter that way. She sighed: it always had to be the hard way.  
She hunted down the rings. They had been scattered across the globe: that was okay. She needed only one. She would not return.

She found one in a church on a hill in the middle of the countryside.  
“I do not mean to take it, only to wear it. It belonged to my uncle.” The pastor looked into her face and placed his hands upon her shoulders. He prayed for her, for he saw what would come after in her face. He knew as well as she did that it was time. He lead her to a comfortable chair and handed her the ring.  
It was yellow. She placed it on her finger without hesitation.

She made her way through the wood on instinct. She walked past many pools and found herself drawn to one in particular. It called her home. She went.

She wept once more when she saw the forsaken land before her. It had been raped even more than she had, she thought. The trees were lying on the ground, chopped into pieces. Everything was in ruins. There was no sign of life. She walked to the eastern sea, where she knew Aslan had returned to his people. Her siblings, too, had gone, she supposed. She took off her stockings and stood in the water, as she had with Edmund not so very long ago. She washed her face and she knelt in the water. This time, she was cleansed.  
She no longer felt the man’s hands on her. She knew that he had not taken her home from her: she had taken it from herself. When she returned to her shoes, she found that they were filled with seeds.

She went barefoot to the Stone Table and placed her shoes beside it. She knelt with her back away from it, and almost felt Aslan’s presence behind her. Almost.

She planted the seeds where the Great Woods were before. The world was dark and cold: the seeds, she knew would not grow. But she was Queen Susan the Gentle of the Southern Sun, and she nurtured them and created her own light, much as she had in her lifetime. She sat in the middle of the growing plants and told them stories of Narnia as it had been. She waited patiently, carrying water to them with her bare hands.  
When the Dryads leave their trees, it is to sit in front of Susan and to ask for more stories.

The Return of the Dryads brings about the Beginning. Many creatures simply appear in the middle of the night as Susan sleeps. She nurtures each in turn. They swear themselves to her mission: together they repair the land and bring about peace. The only land untouched is Cair Paravel, which Susan cannot bear to look upon. She doesn’t notice when the sun starts shining without her asking and the rain once again washes the land clean. The land is an extension of her soul: it does as she asked without her prompting.  
Humanoids return eventually. The Satyrs and Merpeople, the Centaurs and Giants and Dwarves, the Gnomes and Star People and even the Fauns, who are close to her heart. The land flourishes and the kingdoms get along as they did not even in the Golden Age. Humans themselves do not return to Narnia. Susan finds that she doesn’t mind: she has come to love all creatures as her own children. She is unsure of whether she could love a human in the same way, with all they have done to her.

Susan sleeps beside the Stone Table after one hundred years of work, as young as she was on the first day, and Aslan appears to her at long last.  
“Soon,” he says, and she wakes and weeps upon the table. She leaves her shoes beside it and starts walking. It is time, she knows, to return to Cair Paravel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter three! If you recognize it I don't own it! Comments are like hugs! And I love hugs!

At first, she thinks that her children have repaired the castle against her wishes. She cannot find it in herself to blame them.  
Just because she could not face it does not mean that they should live in the shadow of its ruin.

She sits outside the castle and looks at her feet, callused and bleeding. She looks at her hands, much the same. Her hair is wild and tangled and she is more of a beast than any of her children. She chuckles as she hears her mother’s voice in her head, calling it a mane. Aslan may have liked that.

A voice calls her name and her voice catches in her throat.  
Edmund.

“Susan! Susan!” She does not answer, does not turn around, just continues to stare at her bleeding hands and feet. She hears the voice curse.  
“Peter! Lucy! She’s bleeding. Help me get her inside.”

Hands guide her to her feet, voices surround her, her eyes remain steadfastly closed as she doesn’t dare to believe that she would be found worthy of their return.  
She feels her feet and hands be cleaned and wrapped, she feels her hair gently being untangled.  
Less hands now, helping her out of her dress, guiding her to a bath. Lucy, she supposes. Her hands are still small. Her voice begs Susan to open her eyes. Susan goes where the hands guide her, she does not respond. She can not respond.

There is softness all around her as she drifts to sleep. She cannot close her eyes here: everything is bright and beautiful. It is too much.  
It is home.  
Aslan is standing in front of her and she kneels. He walks to her and allows her to bury her face in his mane: the feel of it is more overwhelming than the brightness of the world. It looks like him, feels like him, _smells_ like him. She does not weep. She embraces Aslan and shakes.

“My daughter. Dearest to my heart, you have done so well. It is time now to come home.” His voice rumbles and she feels it in her chest.  
“Were you not home already?” Her voice is as thin as the wind. “Were you not happy there?” Aslan hums.  
“My dearest one, it was not home without you. What happened to this world was a great tragedy, it wounded me to my core. I went home for a time. I recovered.”  
“But why did you not let me come with you? I was on my way, Aslan, I was coming. I never wanted to go!” Her voice grows louder and she feels herself breaking. Aslan is silent as she succumbs to the sobs she has held inside of her for far too long.

“You did not believe in the end of Narnia.” Aslan said, and it feels like an answer. She understands. Because she did not believe in the end, it had not truly come. It was not all lost. Her siblings had seen it, and, upon seeing it fall, believed that it was the end. That belief had helped to end the world. Susan had been strong, even as Aslan had not.  
“All is well now, my child. You have made it so.” Susan finds herself enveloped in the sound of his voice.

She did not know how long they stayed there, in her dream, but when she returned to the world, she was awake for the first time since she had left in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you recognize it, I don't own it. Chapter four!!! If you comment you become one of my favorite people automatically.

She opened her eyes and she was alone. She dressed carefully, but found that neither her hands nor her feet bothered her. She put on clothes that she had worn long before, clothing that marked her as queen. She braided her hair into a crown, forgoing one of silver for the one she made herself.  
She looked into the mirror and saw both the queen she had been and the queen she was now. She accepted both and her shoulders rolled back. She held her head high. She reached for her bow and horn and they were there waiting for her faithfully, old friends that they were.  
She descended into the throne room where she heard her siblings talking with raised voices. She huffed: she had always been the one to keep everyone calm.

“What’s all this, then?” She asked, and the three froze and turned to her.  
“Susan!” Edmund was the first to move, throwing himself at her feet. She knelt and embraced him.  
“Oh Ed, it’s alright now. I’ve fixed it all.” He was crying, she noticed. She held him close, and only looked up when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Peter. His eyes held a mixture of great sorrow and wonder.  
“We thought we’d never see you again,” he whispered. She gave him a half smile.  
“You thought wrong, then, didn’t you?” He laughed disbelievingly and knelt to join the embrace. Edmund pulled away first, embarrassed. Susan grinned and wiped away his tears.  
“Looks like you’re leaking, little brother.” He huffed and sniffed, turning away. He rose and stalked out of the room. He’d need some time, she knew, to get over this. They had been the closest of the siblings before, and her supposed betrayal had left him lonely and grieving.  
Peter held her tighter, then looked her over.  
“You look much better. We were worried.” She smiled.  
“A visit from Aslan does a lot of good.”  
He looked surprised. “But Aslan said he wasn’t returning with us!”  
“It was but a dream, Peter. No need to be upset. Aslan will do as he sees fit. I will not question Him.” Peter accepted this with a frown.  
“I’m going to go find Edmund,” he said, rising. Seeing as he left in the opposite direction, Susan doubted that this was the case, but she let him go. He was always brooding too much for his own good, but perhaps this time some good would come of it.  
She rose and faced Lucy, who was as still as a statue where she stood.  
“Lu,” she started, then found the words caught in her throat.

“You said that it was all a game. You said Aslan wasn’t real. You didn’t come when Narnia asked for help.” Her voice was cold and there was no hint of the nurturing hands that had helped her to bed last night. They were balled into fists at her sides. “Why are you here?” Her voice was low and shaky. Susan sighed.  
“I never left Narnia, Lu. Narnia left me. And if you ask anyone out there, any being, they would tell you that I restored this land. So watch your tone. When you are ready to hear my story, I will tell you.” She turned and left the throne room, finding herself in the library.  
As she walked through the shelves, she stopped at a familiar title. There, among the other books of lore, sat the books of her own creation. She smiled.

They sat down together for dinner that evening and Lucy glared daggers at her from across the table. Susan held her head high and ate with a singleness of mind that she had found only in the past few years. When she finished, she started her story.  
“When I returned from Narnia…”

By the time she finished, Lucy was at her feet, begging for her forgiveness. She found that she didn’t have to: Susan understood and welcomed her into her arms. Her brothers’ eyes met across the table and they silently swore that Susan would never be alone again. She would never be afraid again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT! THE END! As always, if you recognize it, I don't own it.

The first humans to return to Narnia were a boy and girl named Clive and Pauline. They grew up in love and soon there were whole clans of humans living in Narnia.

Aslan returned many years later, to find Susan the Gentle of the Southern Sun, High Queen of Narnia, Great Mother of the Land, and Keeper of the Peace, barefoot, washing her face and kneeling in the saltwater of the Eastern Sea. She smiled at him. “All is well, Aslan.” His laughter rumbled throughout the land.

“Yes, my child. All is well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was quite the story.
> 
> I decided to write it when I saw that other people were outraged at what happened to Susan in the books, as I have been since I finished reading them as a child. My siblings and I always pretended to be the characters from Narnia, since there are two boys and two girls in my family and that worked out well for us, and I was always Susan. When she betrayed everyone, it hit me hard, especially because out of all of us, I was the one who never really left Narnia.
> 
> So I fixed it in my own way. I hope this brings some peace to others who cried when the books ended. This piece was not meant to be religious: I tried to make it about the characters themselves instead of who and what they represented. It was purely for my own peace of mind.
> 
> Thank you to those who left comments and kudos! If you want to see something else in this fandom, by all means let me know! I had lots of fun rediscovering this world and I would love to do more.


End file.
